READ all about it?
When the world No.1 misses the cut in an event he is defending, the media masses descend on him like a pack of shrieking hyenas louping on a limping wildebeest. Rory McIlroy wasn't going to make much of a fuss about it, mind you. "I'm not going to read too much into this," reflected the 26-year-old after making an early exit from the European Tour's flagship event after a tired 78 left him down in the lower reaches on a five-over 149.
It was McIlroy's highest score since he cobbled together a similar card in last July's Scottish Open at Royal Aberdeen. Since winning here at Wentworth 12 months ago, this was only his third missed cut in 24 events. In fact he's only missed three cuts in his last 45. At least he gets a couple of extra days to recharge his batteries before he hosts the Irish Open at Royal County Down next week.
McIlroy's recent record in this neck of the woods from 2012 reads missed cut, missed cut, win, missed cut. "I'm sort of back to my usual at Wentworth," he said with a wry smile of a course that has never been one of his happiest hunting grounds.
McIlroy, chasing a third victory in four weeks following successes at the WGC-Cadillac Match Play and the Wells Fargo Championship, was clearly not on full throttle on Surrey soil and fatigue took its toll.
He had expressed his mental frustration after Thursday's opening round when he felt like "he was standing still". The only way he was heading yesterday was backwards. The die was cast on the inward half with a bogey on the 10th and a double-bogey on the next, where he hooked his drive into an unplayable lie and launched another wayward attempt when he had another go at it from the tee. A three-putt bogey on the last summed up the day. "Any time you're defending a title, you want to come back and give it a valiant effort," he said. "This week wasn't really that. I'm not angry, just a bit disappointed."
It must have been an interesting day for Keith Pelley, the European Tour's new chief executive. On his first visit to an event, the Canadian heard some of the big names having a pop at the Wentworth greens and watched the circuit's star attraction depart early. Things can only get better.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article